RESERVA PROVINCIAL PENÍNSULA VALDÉS

Coastal Patagonia’s top destination, the UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve of Península Valdés is the place where the great southern right whale arrives to breed and birth in the winter months. Protected since 1935, the ballena franca occupies an almost unique position as a “natural monument”—a designation normally reserved for territorial ecosystems—within the Argentine national park system.

Península Valdés itself, a provincial reserve rather than a national park, has much more to offer than just the whales. Some species of marine mammals—ranging from sea lions to elephant seals and orcas—cover the beaches or gather in the waters of the Golfo San José, Golfo Nuevo, or the open South Atlantic all year. There are also concentrations of burrowing Magellanic penguins and flocks of other seabirds, plus herds of grazing guanacos and groups of sprinting rheas in the arid interior grasslands.

The peninsula’s main activity center is the hamlet of Puerto Pirámides, which like Puerto Madryn enjoys a longer tourist season because of the whale- and orca-watching periods. Once the export point for salt from the Salina Grande depression, it has grown haphazardly, and water continues to be a problem in this desert environment.

Sometimes called Puerto Pirámide, the village has recently reasserted its plurality. According to local accounts, when the Argentine navy used the area as a firing range, they destroyed two of the three pyramidal promontories that gave the settlement its original moniker.

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Geography and Climate
Connected to the mainland by the narrow Istmo de Ameghino, Península Valdés is 56 kilometers northeast of Puerto Madryn via RP 2, but a visit to the major wildlife sites involve a circuit of roughly 400 kilometers to Puerto Pirámides and Punta Delgada via RP 2, Caleta Valdés and Punta Norte via RP 47, and RP 3 back to Puerto Pirámides. Beyond Puerto Pirámides, all these are gravel and dirt roads that can be hazardous to inexperienced drivers, especially with low-clearance vehicles.

Broad sandy beaches line much of the coast, but the steep headlands that rise above many of them are dangerous to descend because of unconsolidated sediments. Sheep estancias take up most of the interior, whose Salina Grande depression lies 42 meters below sea level, one of the lowest points on the globe. The climate is extremely dry, with high evaporation due to long hours of sunlight and almost perpetual winds.

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Fauna
Most of Peninsula Valdés consists of rolling monte (scrubland) with patches of pasture that can expand considerably in wet years. The stocking rate for the sheep estancias is relatively low, permitting the guanacos and rheas to thrive alongside domestic stock.

Marine mammals—whales, orcas, elephant seals, and sea lions—are the big draw here, but there are also Magellanic penguin colonies. In addition to penguins, there are breeding populations of the Dominican gull (Larus domincanus), white heron (Casmerodius albus), black-crowned night heron (Nycticorax nycticorax), olivaceous cormorant (Phalacrocorax olivaceus), black cormorant (Phalocrocorax magellanicus,) steamer duck (Tachyeres leucocephalus), Patagonian crested duck (Lophonetta specularoides), Magellanic oystercatcher (Haematopus ostralegus), and black oystercatcher (Haematopus ater). Several species of gulls, terns, and plovers are visitors, along with the Chilean flamingo and the snowy sheathbill.

From June to December, the breeding, breaching, blowing, and birthing of Eubalaena australis brings whale-watchers from around the world to the warm, shallow waters of the Golfo Nuevo and Golfo San Jorge. Since 1971, when the first census was taken, the Península Valdés population has grown from 580 to about 3,000.

Inhabiting the South Atlantic from about 20° S to 55° S, the southern right whale is a giant that reaches 17 meters in length and weighs up to 100 tons, though most individuals are smaller; females are larger than males. They are baleen whales, filtering krill and plankton as seawater passes through sieves in their jaws.

Right whales acquired their English name from whalers who sought them out because dead specimens, instead of sinking, floated to the surface; hence, they were the “right whales” for hunting. Identifiable by calluses of keratin on their heads, about 1,300 of Valdés’s population have names; this has given researchers the ability to follow their movements and even trace their kinship.

After the cows give birth, whale calves get closest to the catamarans and rafts that do commercial whale-watching at Puerto Pirámides. Over the course of the season, though, it is possible to witness all stages of the species’ mating and breeding cycle.

For much of the year, Orcinus orca swims the South Atlantic waters in search of squid, fish, penguins, and dolphins, but from October to April, pods of “killer whales” patrol the Punta Norte shoreline in search of sea lion pups—a nine-meter specimen can kill and consume up to eight pups per day. The largest of the dolphin family, the 950-kilogram animal is a conspicuous sight thanks to its sleek black body, white underbelly, and menacing dorsal fin, which can rise two meters above the water’s surface.

The peninsula’s sandy beaches are the only continental breeding site for Mirounga leonina (elephant seals) though there are also breeding colonies on sub-Antarctic islands in Chile and the Falklands (Malvinas), as well as South Georgia and other circumpolar islands. Largest of the pinnipeds, it is a true seal with no external ear (as opposed to the southern sea lion, for example), but its distinguishing characteristic is the male’s inflatable proboscis, which resembles an elephant’s trunk.

Ungainly on land, the 2,500–4,000-kilogram “beachmaster” males come ashore in the spring to take charge of harems that number up to 100 females; the much smaller females weigh only about 500 kilograms. Reaching seven meters in length, the beachmasters have to fend off challenges from younger bachelors in bloody fights that leave all parties scarred and even disfigured.

Females spend most of their pregnancy at sea, giving birth when they return to land in the spring. Pups spend only a few weeks nursing, gaining weight quickly, before the mother abandons them (some die crushed beneath battling males). At sea, the elephant seal is an extraordinary diver, plunging up to 600 vertical meters in search of squid before surfacing for air half an hour later.

Present all year on the beaches and reefs beneath the peninsula’s headlands, Otaria flavescens (sea lion) is common from southern Brazil and Uruguay all the way around the tip of South America and north to Peru. With its thick mane, the 300-kilogram, 2.3-meter male reminds many observers of the African lion, though Spanish-speakers know it as the lobo marino (sea wolf). The female is only about 1.8 meters long and weighs only about 100 kilograms.

Unlike the larger elephant seal, the sea lion has external ears. Also unlike the elephant seal, it propels itself with both front and rear flippers on land, and the male is quick enough to attack and drag away elephant seal pups. More often, though, it feeds on krill and the odd penguin.

For Spanish-speakers, by the way, this is the lobo marino de un pelo; the lobo marino de dos pelos is Arctocephalos australis, the southern fur seal, whose pelt was far more valuable to commercial sealers.

Spheniscus magellanicus, the braying and burrowing jackass penguin, is the only species present on the peninsula. From September to March or April, it breeds and raises its young in remote areas like Caleta Valdés and Punta Norte, but summer swimmers in the shallow waters at Puerto Pirámides have had close encounters.

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Sights and Activities
Many visitors book excursions in Puerto Madryn, but these day trips are often too brief for more than a glimpse of what the peninsula has to offer, especially if the operators spend too much time at lunch. Staying in Puerto Pirámides and contracting tours there can be a good alternative, especially for whale-watching, as you have the flexibility to pick the best time to go out.

Five operators, some of whom also have offices in Puerto Madryn, offer whale-watching in semirigid rafts (which get low down and closer to the animals) and in larger catamarans: Tito Botazzi (Primera Bajada, tel. 02965/495050, www.titobottazzi.com); Hydrosport (Primera Bajada, tel. 02965/495065, www.hydrosport.com.ar); Pinino Aquatours (Primera Bajada, tel. 02965/495015, capitanpinino@infovia.com.ar, www.whalesargentina.com.ar); Jorge Schmid (Segunda Bajada, tel./fax 02965/495012, puntaballena@puntaballena.com.ar, www.puntaballena.com.ar); and Peke Sosa (Segunda Bajada, tel. 02965/471291, www.pekesosa.com.ar). Prices range around US$17–35, depending on the vessel and the length of the tour.

In the waters of Golfo San José, 800 meters north of the isthmus, penguins, gulls, cormorants, and herons all nest on the offshore bird sanctuary of Isla de los Pájaros. The island itself is off-limits to visitors, but a stationary telescope on the shoreline permits views of the breeding birds. Near the telescope is a replica of a chapel from Fuerte San José, the area’s first Spanish settlement (1779, but destroyed by the Tehuelche in 1810).

Argentina’s primary whale-watching center, Puerto Pirámides, has the peninsula’s major concentration of tourist services, including its most affordable accommodations and food. From June to December, whales are the main attraction, but traditional beachgoers take over in January and February. Visitors without their own vehicle can hike or bike to the southern sea lion colony at Punto Pirámide, four kilometers to the west, which offers outstanding panoramas and sunsets over the Golfo Nuevo.

Beneath the headlands at the southeastern tip of the peninsula, Punta Delgada is the site of substantial elephant seal and sea lion colonies, reached by a trail from the lighthouse at the former naval station (now a hotel). The hotel concessionaires provide well-prepared English-speaking guides to lead tour groups and individuals free of charge; they have also turned the lighthouse into a small but well-presented museum. Their restaurant is open to the public, and they also offer horseback tours of the area.

Another large colony of elephant seals and sea lions is visible from the cliffs a short distance north of Punta Delgada, but there is no safe access.

On the peninsula’s eastern shore, about midway between Punta Delgada and Punta Norte, Caleta Valdés is a sheltered bay that is fast becoming a lagoon as its ocean outlet fills with sediments. In the meantime, though, Magellanic penguins swim north to a breeding colony and elephant seals haul up onto the shore in the mating season. Even guanacos may be seen along the beach.

Where RP 47 and RP 3 meet at the northern tip of the peninsula, Punta Norte’s big attraction is the mixed colony of southern elephant seals and sea lions, but from October to April this is also the best place to see the orcas that lunge onto the beach to grab unwary pups. Punta Norte also has a small but outstanding museum that puts marine mammals in both natural and cultural perspective—thanks to exhibits on the aboriginal Tehuelche, and a historical account of the sealing industry.

In the vicinity of Punta Norte, reached by a northwesterly road off RP 3, Estancia San Lorenzo conducts tours of its own Magellanic penguin colony, but is not open as accommodations.

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Information
At El Desempeño, at the west end of the Istmo de Ameghino, provincial authorities have erected a toll booth to collect an admission fee of US$9 for foreigners, US$5 for Argentine residents, and US$2 for Chubut residents. A short distance to the east, the reserve’s Centro de Interpretación (open 8 a.m.–8 p.m. daily) includes a complete right-whale skeleton and other natural history items, but also historical material ranging from the Tehuelche presence to Spanish colonization and Argentine settlement for salt-mining and sheep-ranching. An adjacent observation tower offers panoramas across the Golfo San José to the north to the Golfo Nuevo in the south, and east across the interior of the peninsula.

Sarah Mansfield Taber’s Dusk on the Campo: a Journey in Patagonia (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1991) tells the tale of pioneer life on the peninsula, in both historical and ethnographic perspective.

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Getting There and Around
In summer, from Puerto Madryn, Mar y Valle (tel. 02965/472056) has daily bus departures for Puerto Pirámides (US$6.50, 1.5 hours) at 8:55 a.m. and 5 p.m.; return buses leave at 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. In the winter months, there are morning departures only, Thursday and Saturday only.

Tour buses may permit passengers to disembark at Puerto Pirámides and return another day on a space-available basis, but make arrangements in advance.

Distances from Puerto Pirámides to other destinations on the peninsula are too great for any transport except motor vehicles, so it’s worth considering a rental car in Puerto Madryn. Many consider day trips from Madryn too rushed.